On demand, or in the clouds…?

The idea that I can watch Sky TV on a Xbox360 might have sounded a tad odd a few years ago, but I’m thinking… what took you so long?

Live and on-demand TV on all kinds of gadgets is edging us closer to an era when we can watch content from ‘the cloud’ (aka a massive bank of hard drives in Arizona, probably) while chop n’ changing the device
we’re using.

And what home cinema doesn’t have a games console? Or an iPhone? All kinds of ‘apps’ are arriving on the iPhone to control multi-room AV systems – it’s fast becoming a de facto remote control in the high-end CI sphere.

The iPhone is also a TV in its own right. DRM restricts what you can do with downloadable films from iTunes, but that’s not an issue with TVCatchup, a website that supplies live TV channels straight to any iPhone. Combine that with access to the BBC’s iPlayer, and it’s a formidable free package.

But who wants to watch TV on such a small screen? Hold a phone up to your face and it looks like a 50-inch plasma, right? Well, maybe not, but it does remind me of the Flight Of The Conchords chaps, who in a gig at CES 2008 ‘converged’ gadgets live on-stage. Brett instantly converged a camera and a phone using Sellotape, then put the sticky gadgets on top of a CRT to create a TV-phone-camera. “Does it have HD?” asked Jermaine. “Yes,” said Brett, “you just sit closer.”

Being innovative on an iPhone ‘app’ is easy and probably not long lasting. I also suspect that the iPlayer’s success in its current format is fleeting; who really wants to sit at their desk to watch TV? And the idea of snuggling up on the sofa with a laptop quickly becomes a literal pain in the neck.

Enter IPTV, and the arrival of iPlayer services on the TV via a set-top box. A whole host of set-top boxes are now on the market that provide digital TV, deliver video on demand (VOD) services and even
indulge in home networking. Virgin Media’s V+ box is perhaps the most impressive, where navigating the sheer volume of VOD content is its only problem.

Over a quarter of iPlayer use comes from Virgin Media subscribers, and with iPlayer now available to Wii and PS3, PC hits for the service are bound to decrease.

Sky is keen to catch-up despite its VOD-unfriendly satellite infrastructure. It’s recently started a process that will see it piggy-back on other devices – first via a super-slick interface on the Xbox360. To watch live Sky channels and hundreds of VOD movies, customers need an Xbox360, an Xbox LIVE membership (£60 a year), a 2MB broadband line and a £15+ Sky subscription. Too pricey for many, but the free mirror image it gives existing Sky subscribers makes it a mighty tempting – and instant – multiroom solution. It even works in a second home. If Sky Player offered access to iPlayer and some HD, I’d abandon TV tuners altogether, although the Xbox’s constant hum does grate.

It can’t do HD, of course, because the UK’s broadband speeds are too slow. High definition would require around 8Mbps when 2Mbps is still the norm. And that’s the only brake on the developing IPTV market, which is dominated by set-top boxes. Sales of Freeview STBs are down by a quarter on last year, with more choosing integrated TVs.

This downward trend could happen to IPTV, too. Recent TVs from the likes of Samsung, Sony, Philips and Panasonic have tried to include the all kinds of online widgets and apps, but they just don’t look right on the edge of a TV screen, however logical it may seem to put them there. And do I really want to pay a premium for a TV whose internet capabilities amount to news headlines, weather reports and YouTube – especially when my phone already does a whole lot more.

In 2010, Project Canvas will lay down industry standards for an IPTV open platform, and IP-TVs could appear, but perhaps the TV should stay as a simple display. The IPTV, VOD and portable media landscape is developing too fast and loose for TV manufacturers to keep pace. Instead they should concentrate on developing common standards so that all CE devices can seamlessly share content. Virtual ‘mouse’ apps are already available for the iPhone that can control a PC via WiFi.

Forget the ringfenced internet experience some TVs offer – I want my TV to mimic what I can see on my phone’s screen, and control a web browser using its touchscreen. Simple! So why is it taking so long?

Jamie Carter is Editor and Publisher of HCD